welcome to the commons cast we're glad
to have you here we hope you find
something meaningful in our teaching
this week head to commons dot church for
more information
we continue our lenten series
lent is why i am wearing purple again
this week if you haven't seen a clerical
stall before
this simply helps to remind us of the
season that we're in and what we're
preparing our hearts for which of course
is easter
but we still have quite a journey ahead
of us
six more signs of things to come
now last week we explored what john
calls the first sign
jesus turning water into wine at a
wedding
and this is one of my favorite stories
of jesus jesus making good wine and a
lot of it to keep a party going late
into the night i mean that is just good
stuff
i made a joke about apothec red and how
bad it was last week and a lot of people
gave me dirty looks i deserved that
but i stand by my opinion so take it up
with jesus that said
as much as i love this story
it is one that we do need to be careful
with
it is very easy for christians to
misread a celebration of jewish custom
and ritual as a critique of judaism
if you don't already understand the
culture and the beauty of these rituals
what they meant and what they were for
then the fact that jesus takes these
stone jars for ceremonial washing
and repurposes them as vessels of
celebration
that can very easily seem
like a repudiation of those religious
practices that jesus grew up with and
continued to celebrate throughout all of
his life
that there's no sense in this story
that jesus ever stopped ceremonially
washing his hands before a meal or that
he ever expected his disciples to stop
either
so instead of imagining this story
as these stuffy rules that we used to
follow but now we get to party
a better way to contextualize jesus
intent here
is on the lines of him speaking to his
people saying we've had these rituals
that have sustained us for centuries
that have reminded us of god's presence
near us and with us and the first sign
of things to come
is a celebration of the fact that it was
all true
god was near god is near and everything
we have longed and hope for it is all
coming to pass
now you may not be jewish i'm not jewish
and so these rituals that jesus
celebrates they aren't mine
but i still find this incredibly
encouraging
i mean how do you remind yourself of
god's presence how rituals and systems
and habits do you celebrate that keep
you close to god
do you journal do you pray do you get up
every sunday and come to church even
when it's daylight savings time
do you volunteer at the mustard seed to
pray for peace
jesus is saying that whatever our
reminders and rituals are when they
become realized
they point us to the world that will be
and so my encouragement is in whatever
small moments you experience joy in the
presence of the divine
whatever religious commitments you have
that transcend your religion
and connect you directly to the
heartbeat behind them reminding you of
god's goodness always
that is the sign jesus is pointing
toward
our rituals are not wasted
our attempts at goodness are not futile
the small contributions that all of us
make every day to align ourselves with
god's imagination for the world on earth
as it is in heaven jesus once said
all of this is a sign of things to come
today we move on to sign two but we're
actually going to talk about two
connected stories that move us together
toward john's second slime
first of all let's pray together
god who continues to offer us signs of
things to come
who speaks with grace and compassion
even in the midst of our hurts and fears
even in the midst of the violence we
direct toward each other
may we have ears to hear and eyes to see
your presence that surrounds us always
may those glimpses of truth those
glances of beauty
inspire dancing and celebration our
parties long into the evening
and may that joy become the fuel to
re-engage the needed work of justice and
restoration around us
may your signs inspire us to the hard
work ahead
and trusting that none of it is in vain
and for those of us who are hurt today
perhaps let down by someone we trusted
perhaps wondering if what we thought was
goodness was just an illusion
we asked that your spirit of comfort be
near and close
that truth would bubble to the surface
and that healing be allowed to take
place in each of us
and that this might in time become a
sign of your promise creation renewed
and restored in us
may joy return wherever it is lacking
and may your kingdom come
as it already is in heaven
in the strong name
of the risen christ we pray
amen okay
today we got two stories a woman at a
well and an official with a sick son
and we're going to talk about how i
think those stories are actually
connected in john's imagination
but here's our agenda for today
weddings and divorces royal officials
and no signs for you
but we're going to look at john 4 today
so let's start by setting the stage
after the wedding at canada jesus has
gone down to jerusalem for the passover
so cana where the wedding that we talked
about last week happened is in the
northern region called galilee jerusalem
is way down in the south in a region
called judea
and jesus makes that journey for
passover
chapter four he's starting the long
journey back home
we're talking about 150 kilometers here
so this is a multi-day journey by foot
however between galilee and the north
and judea and the south there was a
region called samaria that jesus would
have had to travel through
now samaritans were a related ethnic
group
that drew their lineage from the
assyrian occupation of this area
centuries earlier
so they had both azirium and jewish
ancestors and they had religious
practices that were drawn from both of
those stories and cultures
but while traveling through this area
jesus meets a samaritan woman at a well
one day
and you may have heard that story we
have talked about it here before it's a
pretty famous one
but jesus comes up and asks her for a
drink
she's surprised that he's interacting
with her so freely
there were gender expectations at the
time but there were also clearly some
tensions between these ethnic groups
regardless they strike up a conversation
and two important things happen first
jesus slowly shifts the conversation
from a drink of water to the living
water that he offers
and second
he surprises her with this profound
knowledge of her life and story
now
when you read the interaction in john 4
it feels kind of strange the woman says
look man it's kind of weird that you're
out here asking me for water in the
middle of the day
and jesus responds actually if you knew
who i was you would ask me for living
water
to which she replies what are you
talking about now in english it can kind
of sound like she's just not keeping up
with things right but the metaphor that
jesus uses here is actually very subtle
that living water sounds obviously
spiritual to us in english right
but in the first century living water
was also a way of saying running water
like a stream
there's a very ancient document called
the decay
it's one of the first church manuals
that we have sort of a book about how to
do church
but at one point it talks about baptism
how do you do a baptism
and the writer says look if you can
always use living water for a baptism if
you don't have that still water is fine
but try to make sure it's as cold as
possible
this basically comes down to hygiene
right dumping old warm standing water on
top of someone came with some
significant health risks
living water flowing water or at least
cold water was going to mitigate the
presence of bacteria they didn't
understand bacteria but they knew what
made you sick
the point being
living water just meant fresh running
water like a stream
so
when jesus asks for well water
and says actually i've already got some
fresh water the woman is like well why
are you here asking me for a drink
and so it's now that jesus starts to
make clear that he's getting at
something deeper
he says whoever drinks the water i offer
will never thirst again you see this
water that i give
becomes in them a spring of water
welling up to eternal life
and so the woman replies okay i see
where this is going tell me more
now we get to the famous part of the
story right
jesus says go and get your husband and
the woman says i don't have a husband
and jesus says that's right
you've had five husbands and the man you
are with now is not your husband
no
many scholars like lynn kohick have
pointed this out and we've talked about
it before the assumptions we make about
this woman are flat out wrong
this is not a story about some serial
adulteress
this is not a judgment against this
woman that jesus is making at all in
fact jesus is empathizing with her story
here
now the simple fact is
that a woman in the first century could
not divorce a husband
she could only be divorced by a husband
in other words
this is a woman
who has been continually abandoned and
discarded by the men in her life and she
has continued to pick herself back up
and move forward regardless
and the way that she responds to jesus
comments indicates that she understood
his intent and compassion
she saw his words as welcome not
criticism
and so she says i can see that you're a
prophet and they begin to talk about
their various religious traditions
the woman ends up coming to a place of
trust in jesus and she invites him to
spend some time with her and her
community
now side note here
this is not all at all out of character
for jesus
when jesus talks about divorce in the
sermon on the mount he takes a very
similar approach
he says it has been said anyone who
divorces his wife must give her a
certificate of divorce but i tell you
anyone that divorces his wife except for
sexual immorality makes her the victim
of adultery
now the context here again only men
could divorce a woman
but if they did they were supposed to at
least provide a certificate of divorce
essentially a legal divorce that allowed
a woman to remarry that's part of the
law of moses problem was they often
didn't do that
largely because there were basically no
ramifications for men getting divorced
at all
women on the other hand
who couldn't hold property or own things
the way that men could they were often
dependent on finding a new partner to
look after themselves
but if they weren't legally divorced
that would automatically make them
adulterous in the eyes of many
so jesus says look divorce is hard
and divorce is full of hurt divorce is a
concession to the brokenness of our
relationships but it happens
let's not add injustice on top of that
let's look out for those who are
disadvantaged by the status quo
and so consistently throughout the
gospels jesus takes the side of anyone
who is on the downside of the power
differential
advocating for a more fair approach to
the systemic imbalances in all of our
relationships
the gospel is not just hey let's be nice
to each other
jesus is advocating that we begin to
fundamentally restructure the systems
that allow for abuse in the first place
and so here
on his way back to cana
the rural region that he comes from in
the north
returning from a big religious festival
in the south he interacts with a
samaritan woman in the middle
a human person
who has a very different experience of
gender in the associated cultural norms
a human person who comes from a related
but different ethnic and religious
background from himself
he empathizes with the imbalances he
commends her for her religious practice
and devotion and he says
a day is coming when where we worship
and how we worship won't matter
a day when all of our limitations and
misconceptions will be swallowed up by
grace and on that day we will all of us
worship in spirit and truth
okay
hold on to that interaction
i think it's going to be important as we
follow the rest of the story in chapter
four
now picking up in verse 43 we read after
the two days he left galilee now that's
the two days he was invited by this
woman to stay in her community with her
teaching them in samaria
but after the two days in samaria he
left for galilee
now jesus himself had pointed out that a
prophet has no honor in his own country
yet when he arrived in galilee the
galileans
welcomed him for they had seen all that
he had done in jerusalem at the passover
festival
now this is sort of an interesting
comment right
john points out
that an honor a prophet has no honor in
his own country and then jesus comes
home to his own country and is greeted
with i mean a lot of honor
probably what's happening here is the
author is being ironic
and that's because
two chapters later in john 6 15 we read
that jesus knowing they intended to come
and make him king by force withdrew
again to a mountain by himself and then
a few verses later we see from this time
on many of his disciples turned back and
no longer followed him
all of that happens in the galilee
in other words he comes home and the
people are excited
but then they listen to him and they
become a little less enthusiastic
and john is sort of setting the stage
for what's going to come as the story
unfolds
other way this is what we read next
once more he visited cana in galilee
where he had turned the water into wine
again we're laying groundwork here we're
connecting back to where we were last
week and there was a certain royal
official whose son laisik at capernaum
when this man heard that jesus had
arrived in galilee from judea he went to
him and begged him to come and heal his
son who was close to death
unless you people see signs and wonders
jesus told him you will never believe
but the royal official said sir come
down before my child dies
go jesus replied your son will live
the man took jesus at his word and
departed
while he was still on the way his
servants met him with the news that his
boy was living
when he inquired as to the time when his
son got better they said yesterday at
one in the afternoon the fever left him
and the father realized that this was
the exact time at which jesus had said
to him your son will live
so he and his whole household believed
this was the second sign jesus performed
after coming from judea to galilee
now another interesting story right
and again fascinating that john thinks
this all of this is the second sign of
things to come
but let's talk about a few things here
and how this whole chapter works
together to illustrate what i think is
john's point
first of all a certain royal official i
don't know if you noticed this but this
woman at the well in john 4 and this
royal official in john 4 neither of them
get names
that's not to say that all of the
characters in john are anonymous they're
not right nicodemus in john 3
nathaniel and john 2 are both named and
they illustrate a personal connection to
jesus
we even talked about nathaniel's
possible connection to the wedding at
cana last week
but we also talked about how john has an
agenda in writing his gospel
this is a second generation christian
text
it's reflecting back on the story of
jesus and highlighting the meaning and
the significance of his life
so often
when we read these types of anonymous
encounters in john
it could simply be
that by the time john is written the
names and identities have been lost and
forgotten to time but it's more likely
that the reason certain stories are
anonymous is because the writer wants
those stories to be reflective of
something larger
the scholar gary bird says that these
anonymous characters are mirrors in
which to view jesus from another angle
in other words when a character is
anonymous john wants us to see ourselves
in that character
and we see ourselves in them and through
that we see jesus in a slightly
different way
okay and what about this certain royal
official who is he well literally in
greek what we read here is a certain
royal
now that doesn't mean this guy is the
king
or even a member of the royal household
but what it does signify likely
is that he worked directly for herod
antipas
now herod was the tetrarch of galilee
fancy title but it just means that he
ruled over one-fourth of an area
and in this case it was the northern
jewish region galilee in the smaller
region to the east called perea
now herod had been installed there by
the roman empire to keep the roman peace
that largely meant negotiating with the
jewish peoples and if necessary
violently putting down any uprisings
he is the son of herod the great
who ordered a bunch of babies murdered
around the time of jesus birth
and he is the same man who would later
murder jesus cousin john the baptist so
not a good dude
but that means that the certain royal
that comes to jesus for all intents and
purposes
works within and directly for
the very system that kept jesus people
subjugated
that harmed his family directly and that
would eventually execute jesus himself
in other words
there is a really interesting contrast
john is building in this chapter
between a samaritan woman abandoned by
her partners
and a royal official who wields the
power of the state
and the hinge here for me
is this sort of gruff line we get from
jesus
unless you people see signs and wonders
you will never believe
see that comes
at a really interesting moment in the
encounter
we read that this official went to jesus
and begged him to come and heal his son
who was close to death and jesus says ah
without a sign you'll never believe
except if you look more closely at the
language here there's some i think
questionable choices that the niv has
made
the word they have translated begged
here is the word erota
and veg is okay
it can be used that way particularly if
the context indicates it
but more commonly this word simply meant
to ask for something
that's how it's translated in the esv he
asked jesus to come and heal his son
where the niv is getting begged from
is that the word is in what we call the
imperfect indicative form and that
doesn't really correspond to the past
tensed begged
it indicates something like an ongoing
action he kept asking jesus to come
so begged is an option i get it
but from the context i would argue here
there's another possibility
and you can see that in the way that the
nasb has translated this when it says he
began asking or he kept asking jesus
which makes more sense to me when jesus
replies unless you see a sign and wonder
you will never believe in the man who is
used to getting his way
used to making demands used to seeing
people respond to him immediately when
he asked for something
says sir come now before my child dies
that's an imperative in the greek which
means it's a command to jesus come
now
and there's a really interesting dynamic
here
this man this official he clearly knows
that he needs jesus help
he calls him sir it's actually kurios or
lord in the text he defers to jesus in
one sense
but then in the next he's demanding or
at the very least strongly expecting
that jesus is going to accommodate him
in the next
and man if that doesn't ring true for me
i mean how many times have i prayed or
how many times have i given money or how
many times have i volunteered my time
and then acted as if or at the very
least felt like i deserved something on
the back end
in fact sometimes there's something even
more insidious in that isn't there
sometimes it's even more satisfying to
think you're not getting what you
deserve it feels like you've been hard
done by or under appreciated we kind of
feed off of that
that's a tricky line
right because sometimes we are
underappreciated
sometimes we are underpaid and sometimes
we have been undervalued or dismissed
and we do need to learn how to stand up
for ourselves and ask for something
but maybe that's part of the story here
our starting point where we come from
today we might even call that our
privilege
but the disparate experiences of say an
ignored woman
and a respected official
that can often obscure the line between
the goodness of god that comes to find
us
and the expectation of being served that
often comes from existing for far too
long at the top of an unbalanced scale
now is there anything wrong with what
this man is asking for of course not
he has a son in pain a child that he
loves of course he would advocate for
healing
but remember this story this chapter is
more than just about a son in need this
is about the world to come
and so we get this really interesting
contradiction here
where jesus says you won't believe
without a sign so no no sign for you
you'll have to leave trusting
and he does
and then john tells us that all of this
is a sign of things to come
if you were to sit me down and demand
that i tell you exactly what i think
john's meaning here is
i mean yes
of course i would say that it's about
the healing of our bodies
and the ways in which the world to come
will free us from the terror of sickness
and the tyranny of decay but if i had to
give you my gut feeling
my perspective on what i think he's
getting at i'd have to say it's more
than just the healing of our bodies
i think it's also about the healing the
reordering of our expectations
how perhaps those of us who are used to
getting our way
and acquiring what we need and having
our requests taken seriously how we can
learn to trust in what we can't see
even as those of us who've been pushed
to the edges and ignored start to notice
god showing up in all kinds of
unexpected places and out of bounds
conversations signs of god all around
them
except here's the real beauty of all
that that is a gift to everyone in this
chapter
because samaritan women
who notice the messiah talking with them
as equals they return home as leaders in
their communities ready to expand the
story for everyone
and royal officials
that gain the ability to trust in the
goodness of god beyond just what they
can demand with their stature
they become the kind of people that
slowly decouple their imagination of god
from the expectations of their culture
and when that truly begins to happen
then even those royal officials can
become signs of god's blessing to those
who've been struggling to see the divine
all along
and maybe this is the sign of things to
come a world in which the hungry are
filled with good things and the rich are
sent away empty
and both of them are better for it
the promise of a god that loves each of
us enough to meet us wherever we are
with the healing that we need
specifically
may the sign of things to come give us
hope for the healing of our bodies today
absolutely
but perhaps also the healing of our
expectations and assumptions about god
and the trust that as we grow in
awareness of the goodness that surrounds
us always
learning to celebrate what comes near to
us instead of just a demanding of more
that we might actually see the unending
graciousness of god and the ways that we
can become a blessing beyond ourselves
to those who need it
let's pray
god that comes near to all of us with
signs of things to come
for those of us who like a samaritan
woman
have not seen your presence for a very
long time
and if putin pushed aside
ignored abandoned
might we today see your presence a sign
of your goodness around us and near us
then for those of us who like royal
officials are full of blessing in our
lives surrounded by your goodness all
the time and yet still wanting
more
might your spirit come near
to remind us that a sign is not going to
make things better it is only our
awareness of gift that heals us
god might we recognize that probably
most of us
are present in both of these characters
without the push and pull of your spirit
that welcomes us with signs of things to
come and encourages us to see what is
already around
is the goodness and the graciousness of
the god that loves us perfectly
that yes you want to heal our bodies our
minds our emotions but also our
expectations of you
and our sense of purpose in the world
might you come near to each of us just
as we need in this moment in this day
right now
and may that
become the fuel the clarity the energy
to become a sign of things to come to
everyone we encounter this week
may we speak peace and blessing and
truth
with our words and our actions
and the ways that we love
in the strong name
of there is in christ we pray
amen